SELMA, ALABAMA – When you begin to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, you really can’t see what awaits you on the other side. The Alabama River thunders beneath you, almost as if it was still reverberating from the climatic events of 50 years ago on Bloody Sunday.
The river was still roaring when I joined President Obama, the first lady, their daughters and 96 of my congressional colleagues as we came together Saturday, March 7 on a pilgrimage to mark the 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march, the spark that led to the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Our journey began on Friday in Birmingham with a visit to the historic 16th Street Baptist Church, the scene of one of the most horrific acts of violence during the Civil Rights Movement.
On September 15, 1963, four little girls – Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Denise McNair – were killed by a massive bomb planted by the Ku Klux Klan. The pain from that despicable act is still present on the faces of the congregants who remember them and on the monument that marks their tragic deaths.
The program at 16th Street Baptist was led by my great friend and colleague, Congressman John Lewis of Georgia. John shed his own blood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, almost losing his life. As I listened to him recall that sacrifice, I knew that I was standing on sacred ground, bathed in the blood and tears of so many soldiers for justice who were willing to give up everything to secure the right to vote.
For that reason alone, no one should ever miss an opportunity to vote, on April 7 in Ferguson and across this country on every election day.
On Saturday, we traveled to Selma and prepared ourselves for the program featuring President Obama by gathering at the landmark Brown AME Chapel, the very same staging area that Dr. King, his colleagues in SCLC, John Lewis of SNCC and the NAACP used before the pivotal marches in 1965.
We heard from six veterans of the struggle in Selma. Perhaps the most touching moment were the heartfelt words of Marie Liuzzo, the daughter of slain civil rights heroine, Viola Liuzzo.
Viola Liuzzo, a white, married mother of five from Detroit, answered Dr. King’s call for all Americans of conscience to come to Selma. Marie recalled that her mother had watched the carnage of Bloody Sunday on the evening news, and just like that, she decided to stand up and do something.
She drove down to Alabama to serve as a driver to ferry volunteers between Montgomery and Selma. On March 25, 1965, after the third march on Selma, she was ambushed on the highway by the KKK and shot dead.
Those who lost so much in Selma harbored no bitterness or hate towards their attackers. They still have absolute faith in the immense power of nonviolence to transform not just the law, but the hearts of their fellow Americans. That lesson should not be lost on us today.
President Obama fearlessly addressed what all who are fighting for justice in Ferguson are thinking: 50 years after Selma, the struggle for equal justice under the law for all, instead of just for some, goes on.
He spoke with great passion about the outrageous atrocities of injustice revealed by the Department of Justice investigation that I first requested from Attorney General Eric Holder. He spoke of the need to restore trust between those who serve in local law enforcement and the citizens they are sworn to protect.
My experiences this past weekend in Selma and Montgomery showed me that in some ways, Alabama has made more progress on race relations than Missouri. It saddens me that the racial divisions in our community and state are still so deep because, as we have seen, the price for not embracing diversity is painfully high.
As I thought about what the demonstrators had endured in Selma long ago, I could not stop thinking about the brave young protestors in Ferguson and the angry images that kept flashing before me.
History really does repeat itself, and this new movement is fueled by much more than the police killings of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and others. It is powered by decades of abusive and racially biased practices by some local police and many municipal courts. That must end. As Dr. King often reminded us, “Now is the time.”
